BACKGROUND There is concern that IVF and/or ICSI might have an adverse effect on embryonic development via epigenetic alterations. Such alterations might also be involved in the sex-related growth differences in preimplantation embryos found in some animal species. In the present study we analysed cell numbers of human male and female surplus embryos that developed to the blastocyst stage after...

background: embryo morphology has been proposed as an alternative marker of chromosomal status. the objective of this retrospective cohort study was to investigate the association between the chromosomal status on day 3 of embryo development and blastocyst morphology.embryo morphology has been proposed as an alternative marker of chromosomal status. the objective of this retrospective cohort st...

In this study, the effect of heat shock on frozen-thawed blastocysts was evaluated using in vitro-produced (IVP) bovine embryos. In experiment 1, the effects of 6 h of heat shock at 41.0 C on fresh blastocysts were evaluated. HSPA1A expression as a reflection of stress was increased by heat shock (P < 0.05), but the expressions of the quality markers IFNT and POU5F1 were not affected. In experi...

Three-quarters of in vivo and one-third of in vitro fertilized bovine eggs reached blastocyst stage when cultured on tubal cell monolayers (TCM), but no hatching occurred in B2 medium supplemented with estrous cow serum. When after 3 days of culture on TCM, morulae were transferred on endometrial cell monolayers (UCM), the same proportion of blastocysts was obtained and one-third of them hatche...

BACKGROUND Aneuploidy is one of the major factors that result in low efficiency in human infertility treatment by in vitro fertilization (IVF). The development of DNA microarray technology allows for aneuploidy screening by analyzing all 23 pairs of chromosomes in human embryos. All chromosome screening for aneuploidy is more accurate than partial chromosome screening, as errors can occur in an...

The role of actin filaments and contractions in hatching was determined in mouse blastocysts whose actin filament bundling abilities had been suppressed by H-89, an inhibitor of protein kinase A. The hatching rate of blastocysts developed from morulae in a medium containing H-89 at a concentration of 4.0 microM was 17.2%, which was significantly lower than the 76.7% of the control blastocysts d...

Objective: Interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) are pro-inflammatory cytokines involved in the mother-embryo interaction during blastocyst adhesion and invasion into the endometrium. IL-1β is also considered as a first signal delivered from blastocyst to the endometrium to influence uterus receptivity. The aim of the present prospective, non-randomized study was to explore whethe...

Embryotoxic factors existing in maternal sera may influence their effects via specific binding to, or alteration of cell surface molecules in the conceptus. This study was undertaken to determine the effects of sera from women with unexplained recurrent spontaneous abortion (URSA) on cell surface glycoconjugates of the early conceptus. Four cell stage embryos were cultured in medium supplemente...

It has been suggested that first embryo cleavage can be related with the embryonic-abembryonic axis at blastocyst stage in mice. Thus, cells of the 2-cell embryo might be already biased to form the inner cell mass or trophectoderm. This study was conducted to observe the possible effects of embryo biopsy on cell allocation patterns during embryo preimplantation in two different mouse strains an...

The goal was to gain understanding of how 12 genes containing SNP previously related to embryo competence to become a blastocyst (BRINP3, C1QB, HSPA1L, IRF9, MON1B, PARM1, PCCB, PMM2, SLC18A2, TBC1D24, TTLL3 and WBP1) participate in embryonic development. Gene expression was evaluated in matured oocytes and embryos. BRINP3 and C1QB were not detected at any stage. For most other genes, transcrip...